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Folklorist John A. Lomax, in collecting songs sung by cowboys, wrote in his 1910 edition of Cowboy Songs, "That the cowboy was brave has come to be axiomatic. If his life of isolation made him taciturn, it at the same time created a spirit of hospitality, primitive and hearty as that found in the mead-halls of Beowulf...He played his part in winning the great slice of territory the United States took away from Mexico. He has always been on the skirmish line of civilization. Restless, fearless, chivalric, elemental, he lived hard, shot quick and true, and died with his face to the foe...He sits his horse easily as he rides through a wide valley, enclosed by mountains, clad in the hazy purple of a coming night...Dauntless, reckless, without the unearthly purity of Sir Galahad though as gentle to a pure woman as King Arthur, he is truly a knight of the twentieth century." |
| Photograph Cowboy watering horse Unknown photographer, ca. 1900 2002.168 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
Christopher Hitchens in his article "Fighting Words 'Cowboy': Bush challenged by bovines" for slate.msn.com posted on January 27, 2003 discusses the term 'cowboy' and its usage. "Still a third implication is that of the lone horseman, up against the world without more than his six-shooter and steed and lariat. He might be a stick-up artist and the terror of the stagecoach industry, or he might be a solitary fighter for justice and vindicator of the rights of defenseless females. Henry Kissinger never quite recovered from the heartless mirth he attracted when he told Orianna Fallaci that Americans identified with men like himself - the solitary, gaunt hero astride a white horse (as opposed to the corpulent opportunist academic leaking to the press aboard a taxpayer-funded shuttle)." |
| In article entitled, "Shooting Affair at Great Bend" in the June 5, 1874 Las Animas Leader, the journalist wrote, "A Letter from Great Bend, Ks., May 28th, to the Kansas City Times , contains the following: Great Bend has its share of gamblers of every variety. Lately three, that we will name as tobacco-box confidence men, arrived here, and on last Monday they cleaned out one of the "cowboys" of his money. Late in the evening he induced them outside the business portion of the city and demanded that they return his money, the half of which they did return, but that was not satisfactory to the cowboy, and so he let go the contents of his six-shooter at them, wounding one in the stomach and the other in the leg. The men's reported names are Huntington, Thoad, and Carlyle. The cowboy has not been arrested as yet." | ![Dewitt Pat Gray cowboy hearded [sic] for my brother Ed year 1887 on Indian Potawanimia [sic] Reservation](images/r_cowb_imag_2002.224_lg.jpg) |
| In an interview in The New Republic, December 16, 1972 Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, once attributed the success of his "shuttle diplomacy" to the fact that he always acted alone like "the cowboy leading the caravan alone astride his horse, the cowboy entering a village or city alone on his horse. Without even a pistol, maybe, because he doesn't go in for shooting. He acts, that's all." | Cabinet photograph Dewitt Pat Gray cowboy hearded [sic] for my brother Ed year 1887 on Indian Potawanimia [sic] Reservation W. R. Ireland, Holton, Kansas, ca. 1887 2002.224 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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William T. Larned wrote in an article entitled "The Passing of the Cow-Puncher" in Lippincott's Magazine, August 1895, "The cowboy, like the buffalo, is fast becoming extinct. In the dawn of the new century now approaching he will be regarded as a curiosity. Ten years hence he will almost have attained the dignity of tradition. History which embalms the man in armor and exalts the pioneer, holds a place for him...Before civilization devours his identity let us try to detain it a moment in its real likeness and garb...Ever since Achilles 'punched' cows for King Admetus, the cowboy in all climes has claimed kinship with things classical." |
| Postcard Fording Milk River R. Steinman, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1907 2003.020.3 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
Having read an article about a play in France called "George W. Bush ou Le Triste Cowboy de Dieu" (George W. Bush or God's sad cowboy), Eric (surname unknown) responds on May 29, 2003 in a Midland, Texas blog called The Fire Ant Gazette declaring that he did not understand why the French thought calling somebody a cowboy was an insult. He wrote, "I reckon that if the worst thang folks could call me was cowboy, I'd be pretty dang happy with that monicker [sic]. 'Cause here's what being a real cowboy means...He don't sit around talkin' about something that needs doin' until it cain't be done...he gits on his horse and he goes and does it...There's no friend like a cowboy; he'll tell you when you're wrong, help you make it right, and go to hell and back with you or for you, whichever the situation calls for." |
| Excerpts from Song
of the Cattle Trail by Anonymous The dust hangs thick upon the trail And the horns and the hoofs are clashing, While off at the side though the chaparral The men and the strays go crashing; But in right good cheer the cowboy sings, For the work of the fall is ending, And then it's ride for the old home ranch Where a maid love's light is tending. Then
it's crack! crack! crack! He's trailed them far o'er the trackless range, |
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| Kathleen Parker in her June 3, 2002 article entitled "Oh, yeah? Well yippie-yi-o-ki-yay to you, too" on townhall.com asks the question "what's so all-blame wrong with being a cowboy" in light of Iran's Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani statement, "Bush thinks he is still living in the age of cowboys, and that the world is like Texas with him as its sheriff." She writes, "But the real cowboy, the genuine driver of cattle across lonely, death-around-every-corner prairies and torrential rivers was the American heroic prototype - strong, brave, trustworthy, loyal, wise, resourceful, self-reliant and dutiful. Sort of like a Boy Scout, except not as clean." | Postcard Cowboys Ready to Start Adolph Selige, St. Louis, Missouri, 1907 2003.022.1 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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An article entitled "Cowboys' Hard Work," published in the August 28, 1890 issue of the Georgetown Courier describes branding time: "There is one opening [in the branding pen] through which the cattle are driven, and the center of the corral is marked by a large snubbing post two feet in diameter. A roundup outfit on coming to the pen may meet some other outfit similarly bent, in which event they join herds and forces. As many of the cows and calves as will fill the corral are forced through the entrance and locked in, and then the fires are lighted and the fun begins. Every calf is branded with the brand on its mother, the roper calling the brand to the men at the fires, as he rides up dragging the victim. As fast as a pen full is branded it is turned loose on the range and the pen is refilled from the herd." |
| Postcard Branding cattle out west Adolph Selige, St. Louis, Missouri, 1907 2003.022.2 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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| According to "Cowpunchers! - Sensible Advice to Sensible Cowboys," in the June 1885 issue of the Trinidad Weekly News , a cowboy should "get up in the morning when you are first called, or you will be apt to rise rapidly on the toe of the foreman's boot...Take a good wash. It is most refreshing and prevents sore eyes and other things. If there is no pool or stream of water don't use up all the water in the water butt [barrel], remember good drinking water can't be found everywhere, and it is considerable trouble for the cook to fill that butt. Don't open your eyes under water. If it is very dry and dusty and in alkali country don't wash your face at all...If you have drawn water from the water barrel just leave the faucet open and the water dropping out and wasting, if you want to get a blessing from the cook. Leave dirty water in the wash pan if you want your brother cowpuncher to love you." |  |
| Philip Ashton Rollins in his book, The Cowboy, describes how a cowboy prepares for a visit to a typical cowtown. "Clean shirts and neckerchiefs were donned - clean as measured by masculine standards, but not unduly clean nor very free from wrinkles. The cleansing, having been performed at the ranch, had been limited to soaping the articles and then anchoring them for a day or so in a running stream. This passive form of laundering usually was gauged by lapse of time, rather than by visible results." | Postcard "Wife Wanted" - Cow Boy washing clothes Chas. E. Morris, Chinook, Montana, 1909 2003.037 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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From James Edward Hungerford's
poem, "Land o' Freedom": I want to be boss O' a little bronc hoss, That has got heaps o' git-up-an'-git, With an unbroken pride, An' a free-swingin' stride, That will never lay down 'er say quit! I
want to be dressed |
| Cabinet photograph Two cowboys, perhaps one named Johnnie Reedy, with horses Unknown photographer, ca. 1910 2003.039.3 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
An article in the December 2, 1897 Edmond Republic reads: "What has become of the old fashioned cowboy, who used to ride into our city on his bucking bronco from the range with lariat and Winchester swinging from his saddle and when he walked the streets in his high-heeled boots, the 'clinkety-clank' of his spurs could be heard a block away? He was the king of the town. He took the best on sight and when he left the town, he rode down Main street, shooting out windows and terrorizing the people. He made news items plenty and then business good. Civilization has made him a memory only, but business is still good, though news items are scarce. Some days it would prove a relief if the old fashioned cowboy would return." |
| In his 1927 book, Jinglebob, Philip Ashton Rollins writes, "America has had two types of cowboy, the synthetic and the real. The better known cowboy, the synthetic, is the son of imagination; and, living upon a cattle range which is bounded by either the covers of a novel or the edges of a silvered screen, he has indefatigably devoted himself to the rescue of ranch-owning heiresses and to the extinction of their scheming and amative foreman...But America has had also the real cowboy. He dwelt upon the cattle range of actuality; and, there being in this latter and almost womanless realm no heiresses available for succor and but very few dishonest foremen, the real cowboy was compelled prosaically to earn money wages by herding live stock." |  |
| Rick Montgomery in his February 16, 2003 article in the Kansas City Star entitled, "Beaucoup tribulations: French, Americans give each other the eye," posted on Kansascity.com writes, "The French word for cowboy, for example, is "cowboy." A near-epithet so linked to the swaggering American stereotype -- and now to the U.S. president from Texas -- the French do not even have an apt word of their own. So in editorials attacking President Bush's willingness to use military force, it's: Bush, ce cowboy de l'Ouest, (Bush, this cowboy of the West) or l'attitude cowboy de Bush (the cowboy attitude of Bush). He talks like a cowboy from the Hollywood movies, they argue, and he carries himself with the squinty-eyed confidence of someone hiding a six-shooter under the flap of his coat." | Cabinet photograph Cowboys and cattle Unknown photographer, ca. 1910 2003.039.4 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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Bill Straub in his article, "Latest 'cowboy president' shoots from hip," November 28, 2002 on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website writes that President Bush has earned the sobriquet 'cowboy president.' "From his affinity for boots, Stetsons and large belt buckles to his willingness, even desire, to go it alone on vital international issues, Bush projects the image of the cowboy - a man who views the world in terms of good and evil and believes in action...Bush is not the first or only president to be referred to as a cowboy, although several of his predecessors have been described similarly for various reasons. Teddy Roosevelt, the old Rough Rider, really was a cowboy, operating a pair of ranches in the Dakota badlands. Lyndon Johnson, a schoolteacher by trade and politician by temperament, operated his own Texas ranch along the Pedernales River...The 'cowboy president' who most resembles Bush is one of his political heroes - Ronald Reagan. Reagan grew up in the non-cowboy town of Dixon, Ill." |
| Tintype Two standing cowboys in studio Unknown photographer, ca. 1890 2003.042.2 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
Jeff Bransford, a character in Eugene Manlove Rhodes' story, Good Men and True, explains what a cowboy is: "In the first place, take the typical cowboy. There positively ain't no sich person! Maybe so half of 'em's from Texas and the other half from anywhere and everywhere else. But they're all alike in just one thing - and that is that every last one of them is entirely different from all the others. Each one talks as he pleases, acts as he pleases and - when not at work - dresses as he pleases." |
| In the July 2, 1885 Trinidad Daily Advertiser the following tale was told: "A cowboy just returned from the roundup was heard in a Butte resort...explaining how intelligent was the dog which lay at his feet: 'Last week,' said he, 'while we was cutting out my boss' spring beeves from the roundup herd, I seed that 'ere dog around among the animals examining 'em very close. I wondered what the dickens he was at, an' kep' my eye on him. Purty soon he waltzed up close to a steer an' after lookin' at it a minute, he run around it an' drove it out of the herd into our bunch. Then he went back an' purty soon he chased another'n out. After he'd did it several times, I dropped to it. He was jest a-watchin' for the boss' brand and whenever he'd see a critter with it on he' drive him right slap out into our bunch. Here! Zip!' and he scooped a handful of crackers from the bowl on the bar and tossed them one by one to the clever dog, who caught them neatly on the fly, while the admiring crowd stood by watching." |  |
| Stereograph Cowboy of the prairies - Morley, Alberta, Canada Underwood & Underwood, New York, New York, 1900 2003.051 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center |
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